Everybody Loves Cornbread

Even the sophisticated palate can’t resist the down-home taste of cornbread. I’ve lost track of how many pans of cornbread I’ve made over the holidays. It goes with just about everything – chili, soup of any kind, greens and black-eyed peas, roasted pork, and a myriad of other foods. Cornbread doubles as dessert when eaten with honey, molasses, or – my favorite – cane syrup. My grandpa used to crumble a piece of leftover cornbread into a bowl, pour milk over it, and eat it with a spoon.

Southern cornbread is made with only cornmeal, no flour. Northern cornbread is made with half flour and half cornmeal. Being from two border states, Missouri and Kansas, I favor what I call Border Cornbread. It’s made with one-fourth flour and three-fourths cornmeal. Every variety of cornbread, though, is made with good old buttermilk. The best cornbread is made with stone ground, whole grain cornmeal, such as Hodgson Mill.

Border Cornbread

1 egg

1½ cups buttermilk

½ cup flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

1½ cups stone ground cornmeal

¼ cup oil

½ teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat the oven to 450º.

Beat the egg, then whisk in the buttermilk, flour, and baking soda.

Before mixing in the remaining ingredients, put a generous teaspoonful of bacon fat or olive oil in an eight- or nine-inch pan and put the pan in the oven.

Now whisk the cornmeal, oil, salt, and baking powder into the batter.

Take the hot pan from the oven and pour in the cornbread batter. Give the pan a shake to distribute the batter. Bake for 25 minutes if using an eight-inch pan, 20 minutes if using a nine-inch pan.

For supper last night I made cornbread to go with a curried sweet potato and cauliflower soup. The cornbread's natural sweetness offset the curry's heat and its crunchy crust played counterpoint to the soft vegetables and broth. Delicious!

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer